#215 - When Your Child Gets Dropped From a Friend Group

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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to tyrannina, conversations about friendship.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am your host Nina Badson.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, we are talking about a topic that many people have been on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Different sides of, perhaps you were or are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: a kid or a teen who has been dropped from a group, perhaps you are parenting a kid or a teen in that position.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We are focusing especially today on being the parent of a kid or a teen who has dropped from a group and how difficult that can be and how we can show up as our best selves when you're in that position.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because perhaps you have never been in that position, but you might be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is not uncommon to be on both sides of this if you have more than one kid.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You may have a kid who has dropped from a group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You may have a kid who does the dropping.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My guest, Andrea, and I do talk some about the very normal times when you are not included in something.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That is not the same as being dropped from a group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Those are separate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We go down the path for a while, mostly my own doing, because I thought it was really important to clarify that it is important not to teach our kids that they will be included in everything because they won't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's okay.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you've heard this podcast at all in episodes when I talk about kids or teens, which is not something I've focused on often, usually I'm focused on adults.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But when I do, I think it's important kids don't and adults know too for themselves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not being in every event that your friends do, not being part of everything, not being included in some group that you're not even really a part of is not the same as what we're talking about here, which is a purposeful targeting and being dropped from an established group of friends.
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[SPEAKER_01]: different, not being part of it in the first place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That might have its own painful moments.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that it's easy when you want to be part of something that you're not a part of.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's really a separate topic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We are talking about you are a part of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You were a part of it and now you are not purposely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that they went to a concert or you weren't included.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a systematic, purposeful way to drop you from the group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there may be benefits to not being in that group anymore, which we will get to at the end of the episode.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You'll have to wait all the way to the end.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's hard to see that when you're in the middle of it, whether you're the kid or the parent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am speaking to somebody who is really immersed in this her name is Andria, purposely not sharing her last name, we are not doing this when I'm video for the same reason, which is for the sake of Andria's privacy and her family's privacy because they had their own heart difficult situation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She uses what she learned along the way to help so many other parents she's had so much good come out of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Andrea is the founder of Strong Mom, Strong Girl, where she helps parents mainly moms, and you'll hear her use the word moms a lot because I think she mainly works with mothers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She helps them support their daughters through friendship, drama, exclusion, and mean girl behavior.
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[SPEAKER_01]: With calm and confidence and clarity, everything she shares is based on her experience and years of research and trial and error and work with women who join her groups to get her help.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You can follow her on Instagram at strong mom, strong girl.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's all one word.
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[SPEAKER_01]: From there, you will find a link and I will put the link directly in the show notes so that you don't have to go to Instagram if you don't want to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You can find a link to her course and to her groups.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She has some free resources.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She has some resources that you need to join to be in community with other parents who are dealing with these issues.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Andrea will be very clear with you and she's clearing the episode that her resources are not to help you fix the quote-unquote problem of your kidnapping and the group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is not about getting your kid back in the group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's about showing up for your best self for your kid to help guide your kid through this experience and get yourself through it because we'd like it or not.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We might think that's not right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We might wish it was different.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This stuff does affect you as a person as a parent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but it does not help them to react as emotionally as they are reacting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So how do we show up steady and secure ourselves so that we can help our kids through?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What is a very tough situation when they were part of something and then they were purposefully dropped from it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: This episode is not going to solve every issue that comes up in this arena.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We did the best we could do in about 40 minutes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you will reach out to Andrea.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you are in this situation and you need support, again you will find those links in the show notes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, let's just get to it, here she is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Andrea, welcome to Dierneena.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hi Nina, thank you so much for having me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so happy to be here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a huge favor you're really doing for me and for listeners because this is a very sensitive topic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to hear from you how you got into this work as much as you feel comfortable seeing because I understand I personally don't talk about things to detail with my own kids and so we won't focus too much on your own family but just as much as you feel you can say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, when my family was going through this situation, it was devastating not only to see your childhood, but it's shocking what feelings come up in you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's shocking what it can do to the energy in your house, to the dynamic between you and your husband.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's shocking to what happens to your own friendships as a mother, whether they are involved in your daughters
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[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, parents or not.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's so many layers when we were finally through it and out the other side And I made a lot of mistakes at first.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure I'll talk about that today when we were out the other side I felt like I had learned so much that I couldn't just put it in a box and put it under my bed and be done with it I felt so lost when I was going through it that I felt that it was almost like a duty that I had now to share
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[SPEAKER_00]: what I learned with other people and become the resource that I could not find.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's literally the bottom line.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And Joe, how exactly does your business work?
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[SPEAKER_01]: How do people find you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: How is it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Anonymous, once they're together, is a Facebook group, is it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Zoom?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What is it, exactly?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I built this plane while I was flying it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I didn't even know I was going to call it strong mom, strong girl.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was sort of like, I was going to put one post up and it asked me what you want to call this and I typed it in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm building it the best I can.
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[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, I'm trying to make as much free information possible on Instagram.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have a newsletter, which I try to also give as much insight and support and encouragement there, but I'm also running some groups.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm trying to tailor them for different types of lifestyles that moms have.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there are some people who don't need the live aspect, like they don't want a community.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have the time to get on and talk on a Zoom call if I have an online course for them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where I break down my four pillars of my framework, which is understanding mean girl behavior for lack of a better term right now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: acknowledging what moms go through tools that I've seen work and giving an element of community.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So in that online group, you still have access to asked questions to me and other moms.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You don't ever have to interact with other moms if you don't want to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can just DM me for the eight weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then I have a periodic live group that I run and that's been such a beautiful experience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And even if this has been going on for a year, even if they're coming out of it on the other
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[SPEAKER_00]: all kinds of different things and we work through that for six weeks in a live group.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I have some smaller options too.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's so helpful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that I personally know people who could have used a resource like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's been times in my life when I've spiraled here and there that were shorter periods of time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was lucky to have friends who could help.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, if you didn't feel like you had someone you could really talk to, that would be so hard and we want to be able to show up in a
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[SPEAKER_01]: certain kind of way for her kids, which we will get into.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Are they coming to you to help their child start a new social life of some kind in their school?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or are they coming to you because they themselves have lost their parent social group?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think most people come to me thinking that I will be able to help them fix their daughters friend situation, whether it is from exclusion, whether it's from being inside of the big shiny friend group but having your souls
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[SPEAKER_00]: slowly chipped away at because it's toxic in there, whether it's your daughter is the person who is just generally struggling to find her people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mom's come to me thinking at first that I'm going to be able to fix that for them somehow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am very clear up front that that's not the mission.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The mission is just to show up as the best version of yourself during this time, which when I say that, they are all like, okay, that actually really makes sense because I am the worst version of myself right now, which is what happens to me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was spiraling.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was not sleeping.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was just crushed for what was happening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I went to therapy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I got coaching.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually have therapists in my group.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've child psychologists in my programs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They really just reinforce the fact that nobody is prepared for this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that comes at us.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We kind of expect
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[SPEAKER_00]: back to it to happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We expect bumps along the way with our kids friendships, but the way things are today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's so different than when we were growing up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're the first generation of mothers to parent with cell phones and social media.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there's that whole layer of that, but nobody's prepared.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the bottom line.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When I gently say to them, I'm not going to be able to solve your kids.
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[SPEAKER_00]: problem because you can't solve your kids problem.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But what you can do is you can get busy doing the work to show up as the best version of yourself so that your child can borrow your piece rather than pick up on your panic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that's beautiful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I love how you said that because I do think often if parents would not panic, even about the smallest things when your kids are younger like your kid wasn't invited to a sleep over.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a delicate dance of helping our kids understand yes, be kind, be inclusive, but also helping them accept not everyone can be included because I do think of somebody's raised to feel like everybody should just be included all the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's set you up for a lifetime,
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[SPEAKER_01]: nature's childhood of disappointment because it's not even always exclusive it's not even always people trying to be mean sometimes I say this a lot sometimes there really aren't more seats at the table like literally there are three seats in the car for this concert yeah that's it how do you know how do we deal with that
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you brought that up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I almost feel like whenever I talk about this, I have to say a disclaimer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that not everybody can be included.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've been on both sides of the dime of people thinking that we weren't including them and then feeling not included.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there's both of those things happening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm really talking about when I say,
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[SPEAKER_00]: excluded or mean girl drama.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about targeted exclusion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The kinds of things that relational aggression and covert bullying and things like that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every mom knows what the line is of or maybe not every mom, but I would say a lot of moms know their daughters can't be included and everything that's just not possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think at some point we continue to define this because we're using a lot of terms that you use a lot in your work, but it's not common to everyone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's actually take a beat to define that more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Since we have Halloween coming up, I think that's a great one to use.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In this example, because there's several things, it's all different ages.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The costume, when you're younger and frankly, all the way through high school for parties and stuff, the group costumes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's the plan itself who's trick or treating, who's not, there's the parties who's invited, who's not as the kids get older, and a lot of times it involves the parents, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: If there's the trick or treating group and then the parents are kind of trailing behind with their mugs of whatever, I never quite did that because I was always answering the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Someone has the answers, door, everyone can't go out with their mugs of steaming stuff.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's used Halloween to talk about the difference between some of the terms you use, with their relational aggression,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Versus kind of regular, what I said, there's not always room in the car, there's not always that somebody shouldn't be asked to host 60 kids so that nobody feels bad.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is the stuff I struggle with as someone who helps other people with this advice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And just having been a parent myself of four kids who like you, I've definitely been on both sides.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've had parents mad at me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've been disappointed with other parents.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've been through it all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is coming with no judgment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I hope listeners know that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've been through everything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have two boys.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have two girls.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen everything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so let's talk about the group costume.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone hates the group costume.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that there are some people who think that there are moms actively trying to get their daughter to be in a group costume.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't necessarily seen that myself, that moms are pulling strings and trying to make all these things happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I hear stories about that every day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The group costume often shows up where there's a large shiny friend group.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I call it shiny, I don't know why, but let's say the large friend group that everybody wants to be in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If there are really, let's say eight girls who are really close friends, they should be able to do whatever they want.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They should be able to have
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[SPEAKER_00]: their group costume and do what they want and that's fine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But when there are a lot of times and there are a lot of stories that I hear where it's, you know, the eight girls and then they'll want to make it just for because they want to be the four that are at the top of the social ladder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of jacking for position going on out there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: whether we want to believe it or not, that happens.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And those are the kind of case-by-case situations and I don't want to put a general blanket over anything, but that does happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's something called triangulation where two girls will feel better if they can push the other girl out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, sometimes there are reasons for that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure that, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: they're maturing at a different pace that they have more in common, but when it's not that, when it's a little bit more sinister and it's more about, let's push her out because it makes us feel closer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's really hard for the girl to understand and it's really hard for the mom to watch happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's right or wrong, like I've always taught my daughter and my son that everybody's learning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The kids especially, they're all learning and we're not going to like point them out as this is a mean person.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This might be mean behavior, but it's not a mean person.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's when the adults then are turning a blind eye or a lot of moms tell me that moms are enabling this behavior or perpetuating it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that's where it really gets messy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I would draw a line right here and say there's nothing we can do really to solve what's going on with the kids and I think it's so important for moms to take a step back and one of the things I talk about all the time in my programs is let's figure out what's in your circle of concern let's imagine a big circle that's your circle of concern all the things that are bothering you but what is in your circle
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be what the other girls do, it's not going to be what the other moms do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It might not even be what your daughter does at this moment, what you can control is how you show up and how you regulate your own panic in the situation and you bring down the temperature.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm really helping moms do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about, you know, pointing out all these terrible things that girls are doing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's more about part of it is a developmental phase that every adolescent goes through and these things happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also making sense of it and how do we get our daughters to emerge on the other side with their self-esteem intact?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, sometimes there's only enough seats at the table like so then let's not let our daughter beg for a seat at that table.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not let our daughter beg for a seat to get in the car that they can only go to the concert with three friends.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have to help her understand that, help her build a strong foundation to stand on and go from there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that is really so well said and an important thing for people to hear.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about controlling that nobody's going to make plans to go to a concert.
16:31.442 --> 16:32.883
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just going to use the concert one now.
16:33.103 --> 16:33.323
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
16:33.743 --> 16:34.704
[SPEAKER_01]: And then back to Halloween.
16:34.744 --> 16:38.045
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about controlling whether people do group costumes.
16:38.085 --> 16:39.306
[SPEAKER_01]: People are going to do group costumes.
16:39.326 --> 16:39.426
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
16:39.986 --> 16:43.688
[SPEAKER_01]: It's how can we not panic about it like you said?
16:43.988 --> 16:48.130
[SPEAKER_01]: And then teach your child not to beg for a place in the group costume.
16:48.550 --> 17:00.554
[SPEAKER_00]: The other side of the coin is that part of the reason I started this account was I just wanted to raise awareness around this topic to show the moms if your daughter is in the group costume.
17:00.894 --> 17:06.196
[SPEAKER_00]: There's still opportunity for her to learn, you know, to see things from other people's points of view, to say,
17:06.496 --> 17:08.037
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't have to invite every girl.
17:08.057 --> 17:20.028
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, every girl can't be in our group costume, but if there's a girl who is sort of like, has been hanging out with us and we didn't invite her, I don't have to make everyone invite her, but I can at least understand where she's coming from.
17:20.429 --> 17:24.953
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see the humanity and other people and acknowledge that.
17:25.033 --> 17:29.337
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's an important conversation for moms to be having on both sides of the issue.
17:29.837 --> 17:34.458
[SPEAKER_00]: What's such a beautiful thing is I give these moms so much credit.
17:35.039 --> 17:42.981
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had moms reach out to me after seeing something on Instagram and say I think my daughter might be the mean girl What do you suggest?
17:43.081 --> 17:51.844
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always start by like totally applauding her and saying I think that is the coolest thing that you reached out to me and Are willing to have this conversation.
17:51.864 --> 17:53.204
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for that because
17:53.588 --> 18:17.030
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I think we're dropping the ball as parents when we say my kids included were good I'm going to just go on with my life and I'm not even going to have this conversation with them and second I think it's such an opportunity to help your child these are all learning experiences and sometimes I think some of these girls some of them I think know what they're doing let me say that first but some of them I don't think they even realize
18:17.730 --> 18:18.591
[SPEAKER_00]: what's happening.
18:18.851 --> 18:31.699
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a kids job at this age to push boundaries and see how much they can get away with and it can be, I'm sure, exhilarating to have all this social power and you get carried away with it and you're a kid and you don't know what you're doing.
18:32.119 --> 18:40.345
[SPEAKER_00]: What I tell the parent is this is such a great opportunity for you to help them because most of these kids I would imagine someday they're going to have some guilt.
18:40.725 --> 18:44.708
[SPEAKER_00]: You could step in right now and help your child get back on the right track.
18:45.368 --> 18:55.898
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it is about having those really difficult conversations with all of our kids, but to stay on the track of the mom who reaches out and says, I think my kid might be the mean kid.
18:56.358 --> 19:01.743
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a time to have a difficult conversation with them and tell them what you're seeing and tell them what you're learning.
19:02.143 --> 19:04.125
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, ask them what they think.
19:04.565 --> 19:10.090
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they feel a certain pressure, maybe they feel different things, but I think a conversation would go a long way,
19:12.336 --> 19:23.285
[SPEAKER_01]: I like your differentiation between somebody being basically dropped from an already existing group is very different than people in the grade kind of wish they were included, but they're not.
19:23.485 --> 19:26.367
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not bullying behavior in my opinion.
19:26.547 --> 19:39.697
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that that could create your own Halloween party, create your own, you can't just count on this one group that everyone seems to want to be a part of to take care of everybody's social needs or make sure that everyone feels good about themselves.
19:42.139 --> 19:44.221
[SPEAKER_01]: and pressure on certain kids.
19:44.321 --> 19:51.127
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you have decided that we being the kids, other teens and other kids have decided this one group is the group.
19:51.647 --> 19:55.791
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone wants to be part of that group, but it's a we've bestowed that power on this group.
19:56.051 --> 19:56.311
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
19:56.632 --> 19:57.853
[SPEAKER_01]: They really can't include everybody.
19:57.873 --> 20:03.938
[SPEAKER_01]: So when there's got to be some responsibility for other kids, other parents to be like, okay, no, we're going to plan our own thing.
20:04.038 --> 20:06.600
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have to, like you said, beg for a seat.
20:06.781 --> 20:09.503
[SPEAKER_01]: So then let's say six other kids get together and create their own thing.
20:09.943 --> 20:26.847
[SPEAKER_00]: inevitably there will be kids who feel left out from that and it just goes on and on sometimes I feel hopeless in a way Right, and I think going back to social media for a minute I think everybody thinks that the group is the goal even parents parents Included why doesn't my daughter have a group?
20:27.087 --> 20:28.627
[SPEAKER_00]: I want her to have a group first.
20:28.667 --> 20:34.909
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the group is the goal because one friend is really all that anyone needs to start
20:39.730 --> 20:42.252
[SPEAKER_00]: my daughter doesn't have anyone to do Halloween with.
20:42.472 --> 20:44.213
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I get her into a group?
20:44.353 --> 20:51.038
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, let's take a step back and I don't think you're going to like this answer, but I don't think that's the goal to get her into a group.
20:51.438 --> 21:03.507
[SPEAKER_00]: First, I think the most important thing is that you don't show that you're wanting her to get into a group or that you don't feel that this is a panic situation that she doesn't have someone to do Halloween with.
21:03.847 --> 21:05.128
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's follow her lead too.
21:05.188 --> 21:12.090
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's make this an opportunity for her to develop the skills of navigating difficult things.
21:12.290 --> 21:12.910
[SPEAKER_00]: That's ask her.
21:13.210 --> 21:14.211
[SPEAKER_00]: What would you prefer to do?
21:14.271 --> 21:15.971
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you prefer to do your own costume?
21:16.291 --> 21:22.153
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you prefer to try to find someone in your class to do two people costume?
21:22.234 --> 21:23.094
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you could do that.
21:23.674 --> 21:27.556
[SPEAKER_00]: The same applies to the concert, the homecoming, all of these things.
21:27.897 --> 21:29.958
[SPEAKER_00]: It's following our child's lead.
21:30.078 --> 21:35.341
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of times we can make the situation so much worse by saying, why don't you try to do this?
21:35.762 --> 21:36.602
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you call her?
21:37.022 --> 21:41.365
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you, you know, and these are the kind of mistakes that I made at first.
21:41.385 --> 21:48.630
[SPEAKER_00]: I started tracking what was working, what was making me feel better, what was making the situation better, and what was making it worse.
21:52.732 --> 21:57.060
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why at the end of all this, even my husband was like, why do you want to keep talking about this?
21:57.902 --> 21:58.223
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
21:58.243 --> 22:02.470
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, because I feel that I have something I need to share.
22:02.531 --> 22:04.835
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like it's like an opportunity to serve.
22:05.325 --> 22:10.868
[SPEAKER_01]: So some of what made it better, you just said, was having the child lead.
22:11.008 --> 22:12.429
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, will you lead with questions?
22:12.449 --> 22:17.732
[SPEAKER_01]: But the kind of questions that's what I'm hearing is you're saying, the kind of questions we ask is what matters.
22:18.072 --> 22:27.957
[SPEAKER_01]: So not suggesting other groups are trying to be part of or not suggesting what you think they might want, but asking what would be fun this Halloween if that had a good question.
22:27.977 --> 22:29.058
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be a good question.
22:29.378 --> 22:29.919
[SPEAKER_00]: I think so.
22:30.119 --> 22:31.340
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I would start.
22:31.540 --> 22:34.743
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a one size fits all answer here.
22:34.763 --> 22:38.205
[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be different kids who want different things.
22:38.486 --> 22:43.110
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it's the kid who doesn't see that group is closed off to them.
22:43.130 --> 22:45.131
[SPEAKER_00]: That group doesn't want them in the group.
22:45.512 --> 22:48.674
[SPEAKER_00]: It's part of the mom's job to have that hard conversation.
22:48.694 --> 22:54.339
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really on us to have that hard conversation and say, I think Dr. Noel says this.
22:54.399 --> 22:55.440
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually wrote it down from.
22:55.822 --> 22:57.462
[SPEAKER_00]: the last time I heard you guys talk.
22:57.582 --> 23:00.723
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like forced inclusion creates fragile belonging.
23:01.103 --> 23:01.503
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
23:01.923 --> 23:02.604
[SPEAKER_01]: I said it then.
23:02.684 --> 23:03.304
[SPEAKER_01]: I say it now.
23:03.624 --> 23:05.784
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think people can hear that enough.
23:05.964 --> 23:14.926
[SPEAKER_00]: And for us as moms, because again, all we can control is ourselves, the most important thing is to calm ourselves.
23:14.946 --> 23:17.227
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I heard someone use the term Botox Brow.
23:17.967 --> 23:26.870
[SPEAKER_00]: because I have no poker face, and if my child were to tell me something really painful that happened to them, it would be written all over my face, my reaction.
23:27.290 --> 23:42.195
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of value that I learned during this time that's serving me now, even though my kids are doing great, it's serving me now to put some space between the event and my reaction to things with my kids, and whether that means
23:42.755 --> 23:45.097
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I tell moms of my programs this all the time.
23:45.117 --> 23:46.198
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's forget Halloween.
23:46.238 --> 23:49.641
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just take a normal day after school and your child comes home.
23:49.721 --> 23:51.883
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know that they're going through a hard time.
23:52.504 --> 23:54.946
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's holding a warm cup of tea in your hand.
23:55.026 --> 23:57.829
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's holding an ice cold glass of water.
23:58.229 --> 24:13.985
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's something that will kind of bring you back to center to remind you to keep your face pretty neutral to try to say less if you want to say five things say one of them instead and it really does take time and it's like building a muscle.
24:14.385 --> 24:27.937
[SPEAKER_00]: you can get there and that's what I am constantly trying to encourage moms to do because the comparison that we're doing to ourselves all the time again because perhaps social media, we want what we see everybody else having for our kids.
24:28.438 --> 24:33.462
[SPEAKER_00]: But the most important thing we can do is show them what really matters in this moment.
24:33.880 --> 24:36.963
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm hearing is so helpful that the goal is not a group.
24:37.143 --> 24:53.378
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something we have to keep in mind all the time to bring in some more neutrality to the way we react, to the look on our face, even, to ask perhaps very gentle open question of what would you want to do this weekend, maybe, or what would you want to do for Halloween?
24:54.259 --> 25:11.117
[SPEAKER_01]: suggest what we think a kid should want or maybe what we want of what it right when we were right in middle school or high school or elementary school these are all things that are so helpful and I hear what you're saying on you know keeping the focus on genuine we were defining it before exclusion.
25:11.777 --> 25:15.400
[SPEAKER_01]: You're part of the group and now all this had in your not for reasons that are unclear.
25:15.440 --> 25:17.282
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just not in the group chat anymore.
25:17.342 --> 25:19.824
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean the group chats are a lot of what's going on.
25:20.244 --> 25:28.050
[SPEAKER_01]: I just read a piece by Katherine Matrinko who was a guest on the podcast a couple years ago and she does a lot of work not in this area per se.
25:28.110 --> 25:30.232
[SPEAKER_01]: She does really more work on low tech.
25:30.552 --> 25:40.437
[SPEAKER_01]: parenting and low-tech schools and like she's really on the forefront of trying to get the phones out of schools and not just the phone, the laptops, everything and have a low-tech household.
25:40.597 --> 25:47.261
[SPEAKER_01]: She just recently had a piece and I'll share it in the show notes about not letting your kids be in a group chat even, which is hard.
25:47.421 --> 25:48.221
[SPEAKER_01]: That's very hard.
25:48.262 --> 25:50.763
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of an extreme because her feeling is
25:51.223 --> 25:54.204
[SPEAKER_01]: The Snapchat social media, a lot of us have our eye on waiting.
25:54.724 --> 25:58.986
[SPEAKER_01]: It shows me never, but you know, junior high, let's say, you know, we're letting our kids be on group chats.
25:59.386 --> 26:06.068
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of discussion out there on waiting to let a kid get social media or waiting for a kid to get a phone and then waiting for them to get social media.
26:06.348 --> 26:10.369
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not much chat about waiting to let them be in a group chat.
26:10.770 --> 26:12.970
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's probably a fall sense of control.
26:13.050 --> 26:15.031
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how we could really control that.
26:15.351 --> 26:21.196
[SPEAKER_01]: There was an NPR story recently about kids commenting on NPR posts on Instagram to do see this.
26:21.417 --> 26:22.077
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I didn't.
26:22.658 --> 26:23.579
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is really interesting.
26:23.599 --> 26:25.260
[SPEAKER_01]: So I reglaced a whole thing.
26:25.660 --> 26:35.830
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll link that in the show notes to you how there was some NPR interns who noticed that there were comments on some of the social media posts from NPR shows that didn't make any sense.
26:36.410 --> 26:37.751
[SPEAKER_01]: And they seemed like they were bots.
26:37.992 --> 26:39.393
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they kept deleting them.
26:39.413 --> 26:40.354
[SPEAKER_01]: And just since it was like,
26:40.854 --> 26:42.835
[SPEAKER_01]: weird acronyms and kind of code speak.
26:43.175 --> 26:57.122
[SPEAKER_01]: And it turned out it was middle school kids whose parents wouldn't let them have social media and maybe even group chats who were using probably the school apparatus to get on these NPR because NPR is above it's like a high-brow kind of thing.
26:57.522 --> 27:01.804
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were having group chats within the NPR social media post.
27:02.150 --> 27:03.530
[SPEAKER_01]: Kids will find a way as my point.
27:03.550 --> 27:04.771
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, right, right.
27:05.451 --> 27:10.292
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say that I have started to see some trends in the moms that I work with.
27:10.773 --> 27:17.014
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, a lot of times, they will be the ones who were the last to let their kid have a cell phone in the group.
27:17.415 --> 27:25.717
[SPEAKER_00]: And it kind of did the kid a disservice because it just naturally bumped them out of the group because they were hard to get in touch with.
27:26.077 --> 27:27.718
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is so hard for people to hear.
27:27.878 --> 27:29.598
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like our worst nightmare.
27:29.678 --> 27:31.019
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was one of those people.
27:31.099 --> 27:39.522
[SPEAKER_00]: I was one of those who I was the last my daughter was the oldest in my house, but had all friends that were the youngest in their respective houses.
27:39.722 --> 27:41.083
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know what happens there?
27:41.503 --> 27:59.833
[SPEAKER_00]: My rules are the tightest because she's my first and the other kids that rules have loosened so they had cell phones for years and it could go either way It could get them in trouble or it could keep them out of opportunities to connect so we can't control it These are things we can't control but what we can control is whatever happens.
27:59.913 --> 28:07.397
[SPEAKER_00]: We can look at it like this might also be an extreme But I still say that the bumps that we went through they happened for us not to us
28:07.937 --> 28:10.459
[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter can walk into a room now.
28:10.679 --> 28:13.281
[SPEAKER_00]: She can go to a club at college.
28:13.341 --> 28:16.684
[SPEAKER_00]: Go join a club where no one else is going with her.
28:17.084 --> 28:18.445
[SPEAKER_00]: She has the self-confidence.
28:18.485 --> 28:21.368
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't have to move in a giant group of people all the time.
28:21.808 --> 28:28.333
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes these things that happen to our kids, they're building chops for them and it's
28:28.593 --> 28:32.535
[SPEAKER_00]: Pay it's awful short term pain for a long term gain.
28:32.755 --> 28:39.618
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't see it at the moment, but that's why you need these little tiny micro strategies about how to get through it.
28:39.917 --> 28:43.540
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think parents suffer more nowadays?
28:43.560 --> 28:45.121
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you have any historical perspective?
28:45.141 --> 28:48.904
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like literal citations of history, but just your sense.
28:49.385 --> 28:51.787
[SPEAKER_01]: I would assume yes because of the phones and everything, but I don't know.
28:51.807 --> 28:58.772
[SPEAKER_01]: Did our parents, if we were dropped from a group, did their friendships suffer as much?
28:58.852 --> 28:59.913
[SPEAKER_01]: Did they suffer as much?
28:59.973 --> 29:00.374
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
29:01.054 --> 29:06.056
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't as entangled with us as at least my parents weren't, my parents, their own life.
29:06.556 --> 29:09.918
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't as enmeshed with mine.
29:10.438 --> 29:15.800
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if I could go to a historical reference, I would say I was meant to live on little house on a prayer.
29:16.481 --> 29:20.382
[SPEAKER_00]: I was not meant to be the first generation of mothers to have kids with phones.
29:20.662 --> 29:21.903
[SPEAKER_00]: But here we are.
29:22.492 --> 29:23.292
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, here we are.
29:23.312 --> 29:26.274
[SPEAKER_01]: It's some of this feels like in its real.
29:26.314 --> 29:27.414
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, I know it is real.
29:27.694 --> 29:30.876
[SPEAKER_01]: I see your Instagram posts, and I see the comments.
29:31.036 --> 29:32.917
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have felt it in my own life at times.
29:32.937 --> 29:36.858
[SPEAKER_01]: There have been times when, I mean, just to be vulnerable with you on listeners.
29:37.058 --> 29:40.800
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have four kids, you have the opportunity to do things a little differently.
29:40.820 --> 29:44.802
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not that social circumstances change between the four kids.
29:44.842 --> 29:47.623
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody had to deal with homecoming and Halloween and different things.
29:48.143 --> 29:48.644
[SPEAKER_01]: I changed.
29:49.104 --> 29:53.870
[SPEAKER_01]: To your point, that's the work you're doing with parents is it's a really only weekend change.
29:54.190 --> 30:00.578
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to not feel things so deeply even smaller things like my kid had no one to sit with on the bus to camp.
30:00.938 --> 30:04.523
[SPEAKER_01]: The way I lost sleep over that for the three days straight, my kid had probably moved on.
30:04.923 --> 30:15.230
[SPEAKER_01]: from the time that child rolled into camp, they had moved on and I had a long-distance best friend who had to talk to me multiple times a day for several days just to calm myself down.
30:15.270 --> 30:16.591
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no appetite.
30:16.991 --> 30:20.314
[SPEAKER_01]: As I had more kids or as those kids got older, I realized I cannot look like that.
30:20.394 --> 30:22.055
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not healthy.
30:22.215 --> 30:23.936
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too entrenched to a match.
30:23.976 --> 30:28.039
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to be able to separate ourselves and be the calm that you said.
30:28.139 --> 30:28.860
[SPEAKER_01]: Be the steady.
30:29.280 --> 30:32.081
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I've learned about that is it's so complicated.
30:32.321 --> 30:33.941
[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing wrong with how you were feeling.
30:34.021 --> 30:37.542
[SPEAKER_00]: That was your reaction to what happened to your child.
30:37.622 --> 30:44.103
[SPEAKER_00]: This situation was the first time that I understood that phrase, where they say your heart is walking around outside your body.
30:44.263 --> 30:45.524
[SPEAKER_00]: That was what was happening here.
30:45.944 --> 30:49.504
[SPEAKER_00]: People say this kind of pain you feel threatened.
30:49.664 --> 30:50.445
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't feel safe.
30:50.885 --> 30:52.965
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like a tiger is chasing you.
30:53.465 --> 30:56.286
[SPEAKER_00]: What I always say is like, but nobody sees the tiger except for you.
30:56.926 --> 30:59.728
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone else is like, what are you making such a big deal about this for?
30:59.888 --> 31:01.689
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you feel so crazy?
31:01.769 --> 31:03.009
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what moms come to me.
31:03.610 --> 31:11.554
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they're in a group of people and somebody says, I wanted to move like the other day somebody said, I wanted to move and everybody put their hands on their head.
31:12.034 --> 31:14.216
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I thought it was the only one.
31:14.316 --> 31:15.536
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was just me.
31:15.916 --> 31:17.017
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we need.
31:17.297 --> 31:18.778
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody talks about this village.
31:18.918 --> 31:20.039
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it takes a village.
31:20.519 --> 31:23.921
[SPEAKER_00]: But right now, there's a vibe out there that's sort of like,
31:24.641 --> 31:25.922
[SPEAKER_00]: every person for themselves.
31:26.282 --> 31:31.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Some moms who are, I hear often, prioritizing popularity over integrity.
31:32.204 --> 31:34.365
[SPEAKER_00]: That makes the world feel like it's upside down.
31:34.726 --> 31:39.908
[SPEAKER_00]: To the moms who are trying to teach our kids that integrity is more important than popularity.
31:40.508 --> 31:49.152
[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels like the world feels upside down when there's this really like, I call it like emotional whiplash, where you feel like, is this really happening?
31:49.292 --> 31:50.473
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I hearing this right?
31:50.553 --> 31:52.373
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I seeing what's happening?
31:52.794 --> 31:53.634
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to watch.
31:54.268 --> 32:03.857
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to shift to a combo of things, which is how you're advising parents to handle their own peer relationships within this context.
32:03.897 --> 32:07.921
[SPEAKER_01]: So their kid was dropped from a group that they were in.
32:08.101 --> 32:14.748
[SPEAKER_01]: They were sort of cruelly in some sort of cruel way, not the stuff we were talking about where there's only three tickets to the concert, but there's a cruelty to it.
32:14.968 --> 32:16.449
[SPEAKER_01]: we don't know if the other parents know.
32:16.869 --> 32:18.310
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's first figuring that out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What's age appropriate to even get involved with the other parents?
32:21.573 --> 32:24.775
[SPEAKER_01]: The other parents maybe purposely ignoring it or ignoring you.
32:24.855 --> 32:26.176
[SPEAKER_01]: You feel like you lost your friends.
32:26.436 --> 32:26.937
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What are you telling the parents?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I will.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The one the only absolute that I say is do not call the other parents.
32:34.762 --> 32:45.204
[SPEAKER_00]: do not call the other parents because no matter how close you thought your relationship is or was with that other person, they will never put you above their child.
32:45.564 --> 32:53.426
[SPEAKER_00]: And rightfully so, the only thing that I see coming out of a conversation like that is, did your mom really call my mom?
32:53.866 --> 32:55.206
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mom called my mom.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only thing that comes out of it to me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have heard
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[SPEAKER_00]: that I really love this job because I get to talk to so many wonderful people and it's really restored my faith in humanity like seeing so many wonderful moms and so many of them are from the Midwest and I was like I think I should have lived in the Midwest but in the Midwest the only story I've ever heard is one mom who reached out to a big group of friends she wrote to the chat she wrote to the group chat half the group chat
33:27.650 --> 33:30.271
[SPEAKER_00]: wrote back to her and said, like, I'll do whatever it takes to support you.
33:30.431 --> 33:32.211
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only time I've ever heard it going well.
33:32.711 --> 33:34.032
[SPEAKER_00]: So what else do I tell them mom to do?
33:34.072 --> 33:36.373
[SPEAKER_00]: That I tell them to not call the other mom.
33:36.773 --> 33:40.994
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell them my own experience that to me it wasn't about my relationships.
33:41.234 --> 33:48.356
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very isolating because you all of a sudden people that you thought you trusted, you see a different side of them.
33:48.996 --> 33:52.017
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though you understand that they're going to line up with their daughter.
33:52.457 --> 33:53.519
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so complicated.
33:53.979 --> 34:06.996
[SPEAKER_00]: You're being taken out of your social environment in a time where you need it the most, so it's such a lonely experience, which is part of the reason that I also wanted to do this to give moms the community a place to go to feel seen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's really the only advice I have with the other parents.
34:10.377 --> 34:10.577
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's good advice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Andrea, I know you have other ideas for things parents can do to help in these situations or things that you have seen help.
34:20.220 --> 34:29.763
[SPEAKER_01]: And we talked about a few already, which was the being a little more neutral asking certain kinds of questions being careful with the questions you asked not pushing your own agenda of what you might have wanted.
34:30.103 --> 34:39.829
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, one of the things I think has been really powerful is looking at what is the need that you need to get met as a mom right now.
34:40.249 --> 34:52.457
[SPEAKER_00]: First, it's being seen, I think that's a big one, just the fact that that's why this account has grown so fast as people are just saying, I thought I was the only one and it's like so comforting to see other people.
34:52.497 --> 34:53.538
[SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Your need as a mom probably isn't for your daughter to be popular.
34:57.540 --> 35:00.362
[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably not for her to have a giant shiny friend group.
35:00.922 --> 35:05.085
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more about you needing to take care of her during this time.
35:05.645 --> 35:09.428
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we can reframe our needs, like that's one of the things I talk with mom's about.
35:09.968 --> 35:12.870
[SPEAKER_00]: You can then see, oh, I actually can get that needment.
35:12.890 --> 35:14.871
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I can take care of her in other ways.
35:14.951 --> 35:16.312
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the ways is to show up
35:16.832 --> 35:22.494
[SPEAKER_00]: Steadyer myself for her because if there's one thing we know it's that our daughters are watching us They're watching us.
35:22.554 --> 35:23.695
[SPEAKER_00]: They pick up on our energy.
35:23.715 --> 35:28.497
[SPEAKER_00]: They pick up on cues of does mom think this is the end of the world or does mom think I can get through this?
35:28.977 --> 35:41.942
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a big determining factor in if she emerges from this with her self-esteem intact You know, there's another need you could say that I need her to launch with success
35:42.750 --> 35:46.332
[SPEAKER_00]: at the end of this experience, despite what she's going through.
35:46.352 --> 35:53.174
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a kind of a flip from the fear that this is gonna din her forever, that herself confidence will never recover.
35:53.495 --> 36:00.157
[SPEAKER_00]: So if my need is that I need to know that she's gonna be okay, and she's still gonna launch, there are other ways I can get that need met.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not about,
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[SPEAKER_00]: finding her a friend group or getting her involved with other people.
36:05.359 --> 36:09.041
[SPEAKER_00]: It could even just be like peeling back layers of her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What does she interested in?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get her future focus.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she gets a job.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she babysits, you know.
36:14.122 --> 36:19.924
[SPEAKER_00]: And looking at those actionable things that we can do to support our kids during this.
36:20.124 --> 36:24.846
[SPEAKER_00]: And in turn, we end up calming ourselves and taking that temperature down again.
36:25.333 --> 36:25.873
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's great.
36:26.114 --> 36:26.714
[SPEAKER_01]: Good advice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I love the future focus concept.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is a temporary time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:30.997 --> 36:35.360
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel like it for the kid or the parent when they've been dropped from a group.
36:35.420 --> 36:37.482
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like this is forever.
36:37.722 --> 36:44.487
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, you can't just say that to a kid, but getting them actively working on something that is future focus, like you said.
36:44.547 --> 36:45.468
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really good idea.
36:45.828 --> 36:59.917
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like widening the lens, you know what I mean because when this happens there's a hyper vigilance that gets us to zoom all the way in as if this is the only thing in our life that's happening and if you can zoom out and teach your kid that skill.
37:00.317 --> 37:09.543
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen a lot of moms take that and run with it and all of a sudden the kid is studying their butt off for the SATs and getting into their dream school and that's what happened with my daughter.
37:09.563 --> 37:14.727
[SPEAKER_00]: She got super future focused and that's why I say these things sometimes happen for us and not to us.
37:14.747 --> 37:15.247
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it doesn't
37:15.587 --> 37:20.991
[SPEAKER_00]: feel like that in the moment, but in the long term I think hindsight's 2020 and you can see it.
37:21.371 --> 37:24.133
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes you need somebody with hindsight that can tell you these things.
37:24.433 --> 37:30.637
[SPEAKER_00]: I always say like I'm trying to be like a rope, I'm trying to throw you a rope back through the process and pull you through it because I know you can get through it.
37:31.077 --> 37:35.880
[SPEAKER_01]: I had one thing of hope, there's an expression and I don't know exactly what it is.
37:36.000 --> 37:48.246
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it a few times, but I may say wrong, but this idea that rejection is an opportunity if these kids are dropping you, if you're being dropped, they may know something that you was the parent.
37:48.266 --> 37:48.726
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know it.
37:49.046 --> 37:57.031
[SPEAKER_01]: You may not understand what's happening, but the kids who dropped your kid, maybe they're getting into some stuff that your kid is so clearly not going to be along the ride for
37:59.852 --> 38:01.473
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good for you in your family.
38:01.553 --> 38:03.974
[SPEAKER_01]: You want your kids to be not part of that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we might not see that at the time, but that rejection.
38:06.835 --> 38:13.058
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've seen this in my own life with my own family, that sometimes the group that didn't work out was actually a blessing.
38:13.078 --> 38:14.979
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel like a blessing at the time.
38:14.999 --> 38:16.300
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, it feels horrible.
38:16.340 --> 38:22.263
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like a ding to their self-esteem, and it feels like pain and hurt, and like I said rejection.
38:22.783 --> 38:31.674
[SPEAKER_01]: but it actually is an opportunity for your child to find friends that are a better fit that are going the places you want your kid to go.
38:31.954 --> 38:32.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I will say two things on that first.
38:34.637 --> 38:35.639
[SPEAKER_00]: I totally know what you mean.
38:35.839 --> 38:40.685
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've heard it said rejection is protection and rejection is redirection.
38:41.213 --> 38:41.633
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
38:41.713 --> 38:44.135
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are two things that totally ring true.
38:44.656 --> 38:51.461
[SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, a trend that I have seen in the groups that I work with with moms is that these are really, really good moms.
38:51.621 --> 38:54.623
[SPEAKER_00]: These are moms who are teaching their kids to be upstanders.
38:55.123 --> 38:59.987
[SPEAKER_00]: These are moms who are teaching their kids to speak up when they see something that's not right.
39:00.347 --> 39:11.313
[SPEAKER_00]: sometimes these are kids who aren't wanting to do the risky behavior or maybe they're just not needing all of the validation that comes with the risky behavior.
39:11.733 --> 39:22.279
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a trend where I try to point out to the mom if teaching your kid the right thing is wrong, then I don't need to say it like so dramatically that way people would say it in the past.
39:22.319 --> 39:23.340
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I don't want to be right.
39:23.540 --> 39:26.021
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to teach my kid to be an upstander.
39:26.101 --> 39:27.602
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to teach my kid to
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[SPEAKER_00]: do the right thing.
39:29.571 --> 39:32.052
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in the end, they'll be better off for it.
39:32.453 --> 39:32.653
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of people I'm hearing from throughout my career of talking about friendship.
39:38.116 --> 39:46.301
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tool to our really struggling with their own friendships, the who they themselves maybe don't feel that they understand where to fit in or how to make new friends or how to keep friends.
39:46.762 --> 39:46.902
[SPEAKER_01]: One.
39:47.462 --> 40:09.262
[SPEAKER_01]: Slight benefit to having gone through a difficult time and gotten through it and come on to the other site as a kid a teen is Like you said about your own daughter you do have the confidence that you can they've been through a hard social time and that you Didn't happen immediately that everything was better, but eventually it was better and you're giving that hope to other parents that
40:09.422 --> 40:14.885
[SPEAKER_01]: They too as an adult will be able to get through this and yeah, life isn't always just unscathed.
40:14.905 --> 40:23.669
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't go through life unscathes and that people who do I think get to be adults who really, really, really struggle with any social disappointment, which is everywhere to be found.
40:23.709 --> 40:29.252
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's always times where people do stuff without us and we're not included and I know we're talking about bigger, bigger.
40:29.672 --> 40:30.853
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of social issues than that.
40:31.093 --> 40:38.978
[SPEAKER_01]: But even those small things can really do rail a person because they see it as a monster social issue when they weren't included in one thing.
40:38.998 --> 40:40.859
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe because they never dealt with this kind of thing.
40:41.199 --> 40:41.439
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
40:41.700 --> 40:41.940
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
40:42.380 --> 40:45.642
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're before we say goodbye because like there's so many you so much experience.
40:45.662 --> 40:47.203
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's so many things we could talk about.
40:47.303 --> 40:51.506
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard without getting into real people's real examples, including yours, including mine.
40:51.526 --> 40:53.847
[SPEAKER_01]: So we probably should just wrap it up.
40:53.907 --> 40:56.549
[SPEAKER_01]: But is there any last thing you want to leave the listeners with?
40:57.332 --> 41:00.694
[SPEAKER_00]: what I would say is I ask moms this all the time.
41:01.074 --> 41:02.595
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's fast forward five years.
41:02.895 --> 41:10.538
[SPEAKER_00]: If you could wave a magic wand, what would you want your daughter to look back and say about how you showed up for her during this time?
41:11.059 --> 41:14.080
[SPEAKER_00]: And then begin with the end in mind and work backwards.
41:14.486 --> 41:20.050
[SPEAKER_00]: because it will strengthen your relationship, showing up steady and strong for her.
41:20.510 --> 41:22.152
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
41:22.332 --> 41:35.341
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll have all the way listeners can find you in the show notes that they can be led to your course to your groups, and they can connect with you and with other parents who are going through similar things and then show up for their kids in the best way possible.
41:35.361 --> 41:36.743
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for having this chat with me.
41:37.103 --> 41:38.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much, Dean, I love your conversation.
41:39.665 --> 41:41.306
[SPEAKER_01]: And listeners, come back next week.
41:41.807 --> 41:47.083
[SPEAKER_01]: When our friendships are going well, when we are steady about our kids' friendships, we are happy or all around.
41:47.164 --> 41:47.705
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.